The making of my 1st Tarahumara huaraches

I'v been dedicated to barefoot running since this June, over a year after I practicing it. Though I have put more than 500km in my soles, and achieved >30km in a single run. To my surprise, my soles are getting tender and thiner other than tough and thicker. I read from some article that it might attribute to my good running form. Less abrasision have been put to my soles. I'm happy with that by cutting by tiny glass is always a concern. Recently I have been cut by a glass and it took me whole day to pick it out.

I decided to get some barefoot shoes. The shoes should be no other than protecting the sole. Because I'm a minimalist, a barefoot runner. To my knowledge, the only answer is Tarahumara huaraches. There are two site offer Tarahumara huaraches. One is Invisibleshoe, and other is Barefoot Ted's Lunasandals. The only materials are Vibram cherry sole and nylon (leather) cord. One can also order online for the soling sheet only. I'v tried to order the sheet but payment failed in Cobblersupplies web site. So I switched to Invisibleshoe, which is cheeper than Luna Sandals.

I got the the 4mm sole and nylon cord (USD30 inclusive of postage) 9 days after orfer by shipping with Borderlinx.

I got the scissors and leather punch from neibourhood store (S$8.4). Followed the instruction from Invisibleshoe: trace the foot-->cut out the tracing-->tranfer the pattern to the soles-->cut the sole-->punch the hole in soles-->lacing

I'v made a fashioned lacing and tried 10km run the next day. It was amazing that such simple shoes realy could run! I found red marks uner lacing after run. A barefoot veteran told me it was normal after 1st run. He said is true, I never found those mark later.

The weekend I run these huaraches in 14km race of Northeast Run 2011.  It works as normal running shoes or barefoot. The only problem was, how ever I changed the lacing method, my feet always slipped to the back of the soles after run. I though I did not cut the right position of the side holes. May I could improve in my next shoes. Anyway it did not affect my running. I decide to wear them for the next week's SCMS2011 full marathon.